Brothers will almost always be competitive. The older brother likes to remind his younger sibling who is boss, while the younger brother always has a target to shoot for. When it comes to rugby, neither Ryan and Owen Vick will ever hesitate to say who is better.
“Everybody says it’s him,” said Ryan, referring to his younger brother. “But he’s not, it’s just because he’s younger.”
The natural competition might be there between the two brothers, but playing the same sport as each other has stoked a loving rivalry that has helped take both of their games to a higher level.
The Vick brothers play on the Charles Hays Secondary School Rugby teams. Both have played the game for a few years now, and both have begun to exhibit qualities and talents that stand out on the field. Ryan, who is 16 years old, has a good feel for the game and a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Owen, who is three years younger, has speed and good hands, which he uses to get around opposing defenses.
“They’re both naturals,” said Cody Curry, the team’s coach.
Ryan said he started playing when his cousin and a friend invited him to one of the team’s practices in late 2015.
“I remember being super confused about what was going on, but everyone was super friendly,” he said. “They said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll show you how to play.’ They made me want to come back.”
Ryan said those early experiences helped him to get a better understanding of the game and now he is glad he kept pursuing it.
Thirteen-year-old Owen followed in his brother’s footsteps after seeing how much fun he was having. Like his older brother, the atmosphere of the practice encouraged him to keep coming back.
“I came out to one practice,” he said. “And everyone was saying that I was doing pretty good and I just kept coming.”
The brothers had played other sports before trying rugby. Ryan enjoyed swimming, playing basketball and soccer, while Owen enjoyed badminton and boxing. But there was something about the intangibles necessary to play rugby that appealed to the brothers.
“I think for rugby, you have to have a dedicated mindset,” Ryan said. “You have to be dedicated to go to practice, you have to be dedicated to try your best during practice because you have to practice like how you would play in a game.”
Both brothers have taken pieces of the other sports they’ve played with them onto the field. Playing soccer for years helped with their kicking skills, and boxing is useful for hand-eye coordination. At the end of the day, however, the brothers acknowledged how mentally tough they have to be to take a hit, get up and keep coming back.
Ryan recalled a play in a game where he tried to run through two players, who responded by each grabbing one of his legs, lifting up and taking him down to the ground with force.
“That hurt pretty bad,” he said. “But you have to have a positive mindset because it is a rough sport and you’re going to get tackled and you’re going to tackle people.”
Sometimes the tackles are handed out to each other. Owen said in one of their first scrimmages against each other, Ryan kept chasing him down everytime he got the ball to make sure he made the tackle.
“We get competitive when we play against each other,” he said. “There’s no way I was going to let him get past me.”
Both brothers know they want to keep playing the game for as long as they can. Ryan said while the game is more for fun, he can certainly see himself playing at the college or university level in the future. Owen said he wants to take the game a little more seriously and see if he can make it into a school with a good program.
One thing is for sure, no matter where they play, the competition will never end.
matthew.allen@thenorthernview.com
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